Top Asian News 4:52 a.m. GMT

SYDNEY (AP) — A team of international investigators hunting for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 said Tuesday it has concluded the plane is unlikely to be found in a stretch of the Indian Ocean search crews have been combing for two years, and may instead have crashed in an area farther to the north. The conclusion raises the possibility that the search for the Boeing 777 could continue well beyond next month, when crews are expected to finish their deep sea sonar hunt of the current search zone west of Australia. But Australia's transport minister suggested that was doubtful. The latest analysis of the plane's whereabouts comes in a report from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is leading the search for the aircraft.

SYDNEY (AP) — A look at the progressive searches for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which are the most challenging and expensive undertaken in aviation history. FIRST SEARCH: On March 8, 2014, an air and sea search begins in the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea on the assumption that the plane crashed on its way from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing. Malaysia reveals two weeks later that its military radar had tracked the plane flying far off course to the west. SECOND SEARCH: Analysis of satellite signals emitted by the plane in its final hours suggests that it crashed west of Australia.

BEIJING (AP) — Thick, gray smog fell over Beijing on Tuesday, choking China's capital in a haze that spurred authorities to cancel flights and close some highways in emergency measures to cut down on air pollution. Beijing and much of industrial northern China are in the midst of a "red alert," the highest level in China's four-tiered pollution warning system. The red alert affected 460 million people, according to Greenpeace East Asia, which calculated that about 200 million people were living in areas that had experienced levels of air pollution more than 10 times above the guideline set by the World Health Organization.

BEIJING (AP) — U.S. assertions that China is the top source of the synthetic opioids that have killed thousands of drug users in the U.S. and Canada are unsubstantiated, Chinese officials told the Associated Press. Both the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy point to China as North America's main source of fentanyl, related drugs and the chemicals used to make them. Such statements "lack the support of sufficient numbers of actual, confirmed cases," China's National Narcotics Control Commission told DEA's Beijing field office in a fax dated Friday. In its letter to the DEA, which the commission also sent to AP, Chinese officials urged the U.S.

TORONTO (AP) — Canada called Monday for the unconditional release of a Canadian man and his American wife after a new video appeared to show them begging their governments to intervene on their behalf with their Afghan captors. The video, which was uploaded to YouTube on Monday and has not been independently verified by The Associated Press, shows Canadian Joshua Boyle and American Caitlan Coleman, who were kidnapped in Afghanistan in 2012. Coleman refers to "the Kafkaesque nightmare in which we find ourselves" and urges "governments on both sides" to reach a deal for their freedom. She then adds: "My children have seen their mother defiled." Two young children appear in the video with them, and Coleman has told her family that she gave birth to two children in captivity.

SYDNEY (AP) — Australia and France signed an agreement Tuesday to build the world's largest diesel-electric submarines in the Australian industrial town of Adelaide. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian signed the agreement in Adelaide, where they officially opened the Australian headquarters of DCNS, a French state majority-owned company that will design the Shortfin Barracuda subs. Turnbull described the 56 billion Australian dollar ($41 billion) contract to build 12 subs as the largest capital project in Australia's history. The contract is also DCNS's largest outside France. A workforce of 2,800 people will begin building the first sub in an Adelaide shipyard in 2022.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The jailed confidante of impeached South Korean President Park Geun-hye denied on the first day of her trial Monday that she used her ties to Park to extort money from big companies. The hour-long hearing at the Seoul Central District Court was the first public appearance in weeks for the woman at the heart of a scandal that led to Park's impeachment after millions took to streets in protests. Choi Soon-sil, Park's friend of 40 years, wore white prison clothes and bowed deeply to the three judges before her lawyer, Lee Kyoung-jae, denied that Choi conspired with Park and her presidential aide to pressure companies to donate tens of millions of dollars last year to foundations controlled by Choi.

BEIJING (AP) — China's seizure of an American underwater drone is the latest sign that the Pacific Ocean's dominant power and its rising Asian challenger are headed for more confrontation once U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office, analysts said Monday. Chinese political experts said China seized the glider in the South China Sea last week to send a strong warning to Trump not to test Beijing's resolve over the sensitive issue of Taiwan, the self-ruled island Beijing considers part of its territory. Meanwhile, smaller countries in Southeast Asia are watching the back-and-forth closely for signs that U.S. naval dominance might be diminishing, others said.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A high-profile North Korean defector told South Korean lawmakers on Monday that he fled because of disillusionment with what he describes as a "tyrannical reign of terror" by leader Kim Jong Un, according to one of the lawmakers who attended their private meeting. Seoul announced in August that Thae Yong Ho, No. 2 at the North's embassy in London, had come to South Korea with his family because of his disgust with North Korea. Pyongyang later called him "human scum" who embezzled official funds and committed other crimes. Thae, who has been under the protection of the National Intelligence Service, met with South Korean lawmakers on Monday together with NIS officers, according to Lee Cheol Woo, one of the lawmakers.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. military conversations continue with China to gain the return of an unmanned underwater drone that was seized by the Chinese Navy last week, the Pentagon said Monday. Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said that U.S. and Chinese officials, including military leaders, are working out the logistical details of the exchange. He provided no other specifics. Cook said the drone was seized illegally by the Chinese, and the U.S. is working to get it returned as quickly as possible. Final details for where and when the drone can be transferred are being discussed by the U.S. defense attache to China and officials from the Chinese military.